


Twin Palms Inn

by irisbleufic



Series: One Step Away 'Verse (& Related Excursions) [9]
Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: 1980s, 80's Music, Ancient Technology, Beach House, Cell Phones, Established Relationship, Florida, M/M, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, Ocean, Teasing, Technology, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 16:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5593426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storytelling is an act perpetually entrenched in the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twin Palms Inn

**January 1, 1988: Captiva Island**

Emmett frowned at the flutter of pages in his lap, struggling to keep _Collectible Florida Shells_ (R. Tucker Abbott, 1985, Waterproof Edition) shut against an onslaught of warm Gulf Stream wind. Easier said than done, at least when limited to your non-dominant hand because its opposite number was occupied by five freshly-gathered specimens. Surrendering, he snapped the book shut and stuffed it back in Marty's canvas beach bag. He brushed one glossy olive shell with the side of his thumb before depositing the palmful in one of the bag's outer pockets.

"Hey, Doc!" Marty called from somewhere closer than he'd been about ten minutes before.

Emmett looked up, squinting as he adjusted his hat. The shoreline was close, as he'd seen to that when they'd set up camp with lounge chairs and towels a few hours earlier. Marty stood several yards offshore, chest-deep in water, catching each swell before it could pull him under. Emmett noted with annoyance that the young couple who'd been reading under the Marina pavilion behind him hadn't turned off their radio.

Toni Basil's _Hey, Mickey!_ blared from the tinny, battered speakers, insipidly catchy.

"Marty!" Emmett called, returning Marty's insistent wave. "How's the water now? Still cold?"

"You need to come out here, Doc, before I change my mind!" he shouted back. "It's warmer!"

Emmett nodded, abandoning his hat on top of the bag as he got to his feet. He hadn't gotten very far in the endeavor of unbuttoning his shirt when their recently-acquired Motorola DynaTAC went off, giving the radio a run for its money. Emmett rummaged in the bag, catching fistful after fistful of Marty's rumpled clothes before encountering the cellular phone. He answered it, breathless.

"Dr. Emmett Brown speaking, but Marty McFly can also be reached on this number. Greetings."

"You're better than an answering machine," crackled George McFly's voice. "Happy New Year!"

"Ah," Emmett breathed in relief, his eyes still fixed on Marty. "Of course! Same to you, George."

"I told Lorraine you probably wouldn't be within range of either the land-line _or_ that brick you call a phone, but it was worth a shot," George continued. "She misses you both. And, hey, some coincidence, isn't it, the name of that place you're staying! Like Old Man Peabody's pines before one of 'em got run over by, how'd the story go, a spaceship? He was a real character."

"I'd tell Marty you're after some reciprocal holiday felicitations," said Emmett, hoping to evade commentary on George's anecdote, "but he's waist-deep in salt water and..." The words died on his tongue as Marty trudged ashore with his brow furrowed, one hand mimicking a phone to his ear while he mouthed _Who is it?_ "Never mind. He's noticed the call; he's on his way up."

"Don't let him lay a hand on that thing till he's tried off," George warned. "You wouldn't want to play havoc with that four-thousand-dollar wirework! Lorraine wants one to use with her clients, so I looked into it. Whooo- _eee_. Fancy piece of kit, Emmett. Be careful with it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Emmett said. "I got one of the '84 originals secondhand and restored it," he said, finding himself distracted by both the background noise ( _'Cause when you say you will / it always means you won't / You're giving me the chills / baby, please—baby, don't_ ) and the sight of Marty, only a foot in front of him now, grinning wet-haired and bright-eyed in the sun.

"Well, if you think you could get your hands on another one and bring it up to code for her," said George, voice too insubstantial to hold a candle to what luminosity Emmett had right in front of him, "we should talk. Where's that beach-bum son of mine? Did he change his mind?"

"He's right here," Emmett said distractedly, offering the call to Marty. "It's your pop."

Marty took the phone with his right hand, busy mopping awkwardly at his hair and his right ear with the towel he'd snagged in his left. "Doc, are you all right?" he asked, momentarily covering the mouthpiece with the dry part of the towel. "Maybe you should put your hat back on."

"Good thinking," Emmett said, snagging his hat before sitting back down. He watched Marty pace a restless circle in the white sand while he answered his parents' questions with cheerful, if curt statements (" _No_ , Dad. Yes, you heard me right. It's not sunstroke! Honest. _Dad_. He's fine! Really, she does? Uh, sure. Put her on the line. Hey, Ma. _No_ , jeez, haven't you been eavesdropping anyway? Doc's fine! We're _both fine_...") 

Marty grinned at Emmett, apologetic, coming over to sit down beside him on the chair. He worked one damp arm around Emmett's waist, daring given that they were hardly alone on the beach. "I love you, too," he finally sighed. "Both of you. Yeah. Happy New Year." He hung up the phone, tossing it back in the bag, and got to his feet to finish drying off. "Man, they've got terrible timing."

"Why do you say that?" asked Emmett, cautiously, reaching out to take Marty by both hands once he'd draped the towel around his neck. He hadn't worn enough sunscreen, had gone faintly pink from forehead to navel muddling out there in the shallows. "They haven't interrupted—"

"You still can't lie worth a _damn_ ," Marty said, lowering his voice that seductive half-octave, bending so that his nose touched Emmett's, "and a fifty-buck bribe won't convince me otherwise."

 _We chose this place because it'd be friendly, enough beating around the bush,_ Emmett thought, leaning up into Marty's near-predatory kiss. "Wouldn't dream of it," he murmured.

"Lying to me or bribing me, Doc?" asked Marty, teasingly, rocking back such that he'd have fallen flat in the sand if Doc still hadn't had him by the wrists. "Would you like to elaborate on that?"

Emmett let go of him, got up, and shouldered the canvas bag as a gesture of goodwill. He reached for the towel around Marty's neck with intent to stuff that in, too, but Marty held onto it with the kind of defensive expression that suggested he did _not_ want that mixing with his clothes.

"Get your flip-flops, Future Boy," he said, nudging Marty's gritty sandals at him before toeing into his own, "and maybe we'll see about that." He nudged Marty ahead of him with one brief touch to the small of Marty's back; it got him a half-lidded, over-the-shoulder glance that, with the flash of Marty's lightly-freckled cheek in conjunction, went straight to his gut. "Did I say _maybe_?"

Marty reached back, snagging Emmett's hand without turning his head again. "You didn't mean it."

( _—guys like you, Mickey! / Oh what you do, Mickey / do, Mickey / Don't break my heart—_ )

"I didn't," Emmett agreed, squeezing Marty's hand, rummaging in the bag while Marty tugged him along up the walkway to #8. View Cottage did just what it said on the tin: offered full sight of the sea. Marty lingered impatiently to one side, towel draped over his arm, while Emmett fumbled the key into the lock. "What I meant was something decidedly more...definitive, if I've read your advances right." He got them inside, the song no more than a distant, dull ringing in his ears.

Marty dropped the towel no sooner than Emmett had set the bag aside, insinuating himself into Emmett's space with the same restless grace as usual. "Going on three years now, and you've still gotta _ask_?" said Marty, incredulously, his breath hitching in slight surprise when Emmett scooped him up, his sandals dropping to the tiled floor. "Aw, _Doc_. You shouldn't have."

"Be quiet," Emmett sighed, silencing Marty with a kiss. It was easy enough to step out of his own flip-flops whilst advancing in the bed's general direction, although kissing Marty meant he wasn't paying attention to the floor; the transition from tile to carpet took him by surprise. Marty laughed into Emmett's mouth, his arms tightening around Emmett's neck. "Did you think I wasn't serious?"

"I don't think you _really_ want me to keep my mouth shut, no," said Marty, with a hint of flippancy to his tone, so Emmett closed the last few feet with longer strides and dumped him on the bed. " _Oof_ ," he muttered, breathless, quickly rolling onto his back. "Now you're talking." He hooked one thumb beneath the waistband of his wet swim-trunks, cringing when he realized what kind of effect he was having on the blue-and-white starfish bedspread. "Guess I should—"

"Leave them on," Emmett said before he could second-guess what he was about to attempt, before he could convince himself to forget that Marty, only just a few nights previous, had _asked_ for something like this. He took stock of his own clothing situation—hat knocked askance, partially unbuttoned shirt, dry and sand-dusted swim trunks—before deciding he'd do away with only the hat. Marty gave him a questioning look when that hit the floor, propped up on his elbows as Emmett climbed onto the mattress beside him. "Roll over," continued Emmett, steadily. "On your front."

Marty gasped into the pillow, pleased, working his chin up and over the top edge of it. "I dunno what you're trying to do, exactly," he mumbled into the exposed sheets, "but I kinda like it."

Emmett took hold of Marty's wrists and pinned them above his head, bending to bite gently at Marty's salt-tinged nape before he could lose his nerve. Marty jerked under him with a low, breathy moan, fingernails scraping at the unreasonably high thread-count. Emmett shifted his grip on Marty's wrists, which hadn't been tight to begin with; he couldn't bring himself to change that, either. He tried to ignore the way his swim-trunks rubbed at his erection, although he could imagine that Marty had it far, _far_ worse. He planted one knee on the opposite side of Marty's parted thighs, wondering how far he ought to push this tease before flipping Marty onto his back and—

"What part was it getting to?" Marty gasped unexpectedly, squirming while Emmett kissed between his shoulder blades with fierce determination. "The song, remember? _You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand_." He sang the line, voice cracking superbly. "That one?"

"I don't care for it much, if you want to know the truth," Emmett confessed, nipping at the spot before tonguing his way down a few more salt-flavored vertebrae, "but if you were to do a cover..."

"No fucking _way_ ," Marty blurted, clawing fretfully at the headboard, the sheets, the edge of the pillowcase. "It's annoying as shit. That one bit's about as much as you're gonna get out of me!"

"Then I'll do my best to remember it fondly," Emmett replied, finding he couldn't help but smile. He'd worked his way almost to the small of Marty's back, which deserved more attention than the rest of Marty's spine at large. He centered one slow, lingering kiss just above Marty's waistband before scattering several along a horizontal axis from side to ticklish side. Marty _shrieked_.

"Jesus _Christ_! That's not gonna have the effect you intend if you keep— _gah_ —"

Emmett planted another fabric-muffled kiss right between Marty's ass-cheeks, realizing he'd have to relinquish his grasp on Marty's exquisitely pliant arms before too long. "Off?" he asked quietly.

"I'm gonna get so mad if you don't, like," Marty panted, all but shoving his backside in Emmett's face, "stop being a goddamn cock-tease and just, here's a thought, get me naked already and—"

" _Shhh_ ," Emmett reassured him, pressing another kiss against Marty's spine. "I will." He let go of Marty's forearms, using both hands to tug gently at Marty's waistband. He got the swim-trunks off of Marty with minimal trouble, taking advantage of the fact that Marty seemed content to lie breathing hard into the pillowcase. He discarded his shirt and his own swim-trunks, as tired of the tease as Marty by this point. He tugged the other pillow up flush next to Marty's, lying down beside him. It took Marty a few seconds to roll onto his side, face flushed, eyes still bright.

"I'm way too turned on to let you do whatever the hell elaborate thing it was that you, I don't know, I kinda just," he babbled, sprawling feverishly into Emmett's waiting arms. " _Mmm_. Doc?"

"Yes?" Emmett asked, stroking Marty's hair back from where it was plastered against his forehead. He looked every whit as lovely as he'd been in the falling sun, and now it was almost evening.

"You liked the thing I did," Marty ventured, already moving such that Emmett had no choice but to shift onto his back. Marty's slight, heated weight on him was, as ever, a heady thrill. "Last week," he clarified, grinding against Emmett with more insistence. "When we got here?"

"I asked you to do the thing you did," Emmett reminded him, cradling Marty's face in both hands, "and I enjoyed every minute of it." He rubbed at the back of Marty's calf with his toes, sighing.

"Minutes being the operative unit of measure," Marty muttered, easily enough ensnared in a kiss.

"I'd want it just as fast the second time," Emmett said, "if it meant I could see your eyes like that."

" _God_ , why'd you have to go and—" Marty twitched and whimpered, surrendering already.

"Because of this," replied Emmett, his voice gone hoarse, watching Marty in helpless adoration.

"Ah, _well_ ," Marty laughed, catching his breath more quickly than he might have, lifting up just enough to study the mess he'd made, cringing in apology. "How 'bout I make it up to you?"

Emmett stroked Marty's cheek, breathless with the feel of Marty's hand on him. "Won't be long."

"Don't care," said Marty, shimmying down till he could bury his face between Emmett's legs. He didn't waste any time getting down to business, each lick and nuzzle punctuated by some soft sound of enjoyment.

Emmett closed his eyes, fingertips skimming from Marty's cheek up to his hairline.

"Please," he whispered. "Ah, _how_. I still can't—fathom how, Marty, you— _Marty_ —"

"C'mon, Doc. Right here," murmured Marty, between swipes of his tongue. "You taste fine."

Emmett didn't breathe for a while, _couldn't_ have even if he'd tried. Marty stroked the backs of Emmett's thighs, fingers splayed, with one careful swallow before pulling off. He kissed Emmett's hipbones, laughing, _always_ laughing as he unsuccessfully evaded the last of it.

"I still can't fathom," Emmett tried again, shakily, gathering Marty close, "how we got here."

Marty kissed Emmett's forehead, lazily fussing with his hair. "Well, it's kind of a long story."

Emmett nodded, brushing Marty's cheek with the side of his thumb. "But one worth telling."


End file.
